Latest Stories
Latest Stories
Findaway Voices gives authors a 45% Audiobook royalty with Apple iBooks
Apple iBooks sells both audiobooks and ebooks through their app for iOS. This is pretty well the only way you can make in-app purchases on the iPad and iPhone, since most other companies do not want to give Apple a piece of every sale that they make. Findaway Voices is a relatively new platform that launched in July of 2017 and it provides an alternative to Amazon ACX, which is primarily only available to Americans. Today, Findaway announced that authors who self-publish through their platform will get a 45% royalty on every audiobook sold through Apple.
The Fictionary provides spoiler free X-Ray experience
Fictionary currently works on e-ink Kindle devices,Kindle iOS apps (iPad/iPhone), and any software that can use the StarDict format such as the FBReader and Moon+ Reader Android Apps (requires ColorDict). Other e-reader such as the Nook do not allow easy switching to custom dictionaries either and store the dictionaries in a database format instead of an easier to create ebook format. I like the fact that unlike X-Ray, this system works across many different platforms.
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 4 is sold out
Amazon has sold out of the 8GB and 32GB Kindle Paperwhite 4 e-reader in the United States. This has occured because the company discounted both models recently and it looks like enough people purchased one that the stock has utterly diplited. Both models will be replenished on December 25th, which means if you are looking for a last minute gift, it will not arrive in time for Christmas.
eBook usage in Germany increases by 50%
24.4 million eBooks were sold in the first nine months of 2018, this is massive 19% increase from the same period last year. One of the driving trends of the year is that the average price of ebooks fell from €6.29 to €6.07 per eBook. Tolino released a few new e-readers this year and more competitors are entering the market. Amazon continues to be the dominant force and recently introduced the latest generation Paperwhite 4.
How long do you wait to upgrade an e-reader?
How long do you wait to upgrade an e-reader? Technology in E Ink devices tends to move at a glacial pace and some companies try to sell you on bigger screens, waterproofing, audio and a color temperature screen. These features are important and ditto with Android e-readers embracing quad-core and octa-core processors and more hardware specs than you can shake a stick at.
The best Android e-readers of 2018
Android e-readers have been around for the past four years and they initially had outdated version of the OS, which severely limited the number of apps that can be installed. Early models did not have an app store or Google Play and instead forced users to sideload in their own content, which was a tall order for newer users.
2018 has been the best year ever for Android e-readers. Energy Sistem is no longer making e-readers and Icarus went bankrupt. New contenders have risen to the top of the field and are pumping out a myriad of devices that have a higher version of Android, but also deadly hardware. Android Lite apps are paving the way for a great app experience. Visit goodereader for the full list.
Get 2 months of Audible Membership for $1.90
Living Social is running a promotion for an Audible subscription. The $1.90 fee will give you access to one free audiobook per month and is available for new members or people who have cancelled their account. If you feel like purchasing an audiobook, once your credits expire, you will save 30% off à la carte purchases. Once the promotional period expires, the normal rate will apply. You can cancel or pause your membership whenever you want too. You’re not obliged to pay the monthly subscription rate when the trial expires.
Apple Texture Relaunch has digital newspaper companies worried
The Texture relaunch will be a premium product that will be rolled into Apple News. As part of this relaunch, Apple is looking to incorporate newspapers as well as magazines, but it sounds like some publishers aren’t sold on the all-you-can-eat approach to news. They worry that Texture may effectively steal subscribers by offering access for less than some of these publications charge for their own subscriptions.
Top-tier newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are the primary focus for Apple, both of which provide a small selection of free content in the News app today. But getting just a small piece of Apple’s $10 subscription would be a huge drop in per-reader revenue for those daily newspapers.
Apple believes that newspaper publishers would be making a substantial amount of money – potentially more money than some publications make from their existing subscriber bases. The pitch to newspaper companies is that the Apple News app is installed by default in 1.3 billion iOS devices (and is part of macOS Mojave, too). Even if just a fraction of those users subscribe to the premium Texture content, it could mean tens of millions of new subscribers or more. Just a few cents a month from each of them could generate millions in revenue for those newspapers.